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Roman Catholic and
Protestant Perspectives on
Business as a Calling:
Managerial Leadership in the
Corporate Square
REGINA WENTZEL WOLFE
[email protected]
SHIRLEY ROELS
[email protected]
002 WAS NOT THE BEST YEAR to make claims about corporate managerial leadership
as a Christian vocation. During that year Joseph P. Nacchio, former chairman and CEO of Quest
Communications, and L. Dennis Kozlowski, former CEO of Tyco International, who each claimed
Roman Catholic affiliations, faced media scrutiny of their business ethics.1 Kozlowski, who along
with other senior officers of Tyco was charged with violations of federal securities laws by the
Securities and Exchange Commission, also created a controversy at Seton Hall University, his Alma
Mater, to which he has been a generous benefactor.2 Former CEO of Enron, Kenneth Lay, was
forced to resign amid federal investigations for fraud. This seemed incongruous to many in light of
his claims about growing up the son of a Baptist preacher: “I was fully exposed to not only legal
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behavior, but moral and ethical behavior and what that means from the standpoint of leading
organizations and people. I was, and am, a strong believer that one of the most satisfying things in
life is to create a highly moral and ethical environment in which every individual is allowed and
encouraged to realize their God-given potential...”3 Bernard Ebbers, CEO of WorldCom, who
blends a Dutch Calvinist background with Southern Baptist commitments, addressed his church
congregation about a week after the WorldCom scandal became public: “I don’t know what all is
going to happen or what mistakes have been made… No one will find that I have knowingly
committed fraud… More than anything else, I hope that my witness for Jesus Christ will not” be
jeopardized.4
Given this track record, some will question our assertion that managerial leadership in the
corporate sphere can and ought to be viewed as a Christian calling or vocation. Others who accept
that such leadership is a calling will wonder how the disconnects between faith and corporate
leadership illustrated above can be avoided.
Corporate managerial leadership can certainly be a Christian vocation. Yet the degree to which
individual Christian corporate leaders understand their work as a response to God’s call and
effectively live out that call rests on three separate but related areas. These areas are: first, the
manner in which they have been and continue to be formed as Christians; second, the manner in
which they have been and continue to be educated as managers; third, the degree to which they
participate in faith-based groups that both provide them with ongoing support for their calling and
hold them accountable for that call.
Corporate Managerial Leadership as a Christian Vocation
To explore the nature of a Christian vocation in corporate leadership let us begin with a
Christian understanding of vocation itself. It is helpful to think of three aspects or levels of vocation:
This first is the common Christian vocation in which all members of the Church share by reason of
Baptism and Confirmation—the vocation to love and serve the Lord and proclaim his good news to
others.
The second is vocation in the sense of state of life, whether clerical or religious, matrimony or the life of
the single person in the world. Each of these involves important, distinct specifications of the common
vocation.
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The third is vocation in the sense of a unique personal calling, the particular response to Jesus Christ
which each individual, and only he or she, is asked to make in the special circumstances of his/her life as
defined by vocational commitment in each of the first two senses.
It is clear in this perspective that every member of the Church lives in a rich and challenging vocational
context that should define and orient his/her life in all its dimensions.5
In the above quote, Cardinal Bernardin captures the richness and complexity of the Christian
vocation rooted in baptismal identity and lived out in response to the unique particularity of each
person’s life. This understanding of vocation provides a framework for examining managerial
leadership in the corporate sphere as a Christian calling, particularly as it relates to baptismal identity
and personal response.
As the Second Vatican Council made clear, baptism marks members of the faith community as
persons who are called to holiness and sent forth to serve the Lord.6 Baptism marks the faithful as
disciples of Christ and provides them with a stance or perspective that shapes their understanding of
and relationship to God and to the world and all that is in it. That stance, grounded in the beliefs of
the faith community, provides insights into their identity—persons created in the image and likeness
of God and called to respond to God’s gift of love and relationship in all dimensions of our lives.
Given this understanding of vocation, corporate managerial leadership can be understood as
an expression of an individual’s response to the God who has made a covenant with him or her in
baptism. While this is not the whole of a person’s vocation, the number of hours spent working in
the corporate environment is considerable. Coupled with other relationships—family, friends,
neighbors—and activities—volunteer work, church involvement, clubs, social organizations—being
a managerial leader in the corporate sphere can be a significant mode of Christian discipleship.7
From a Roman Catholic perspective, this position reflects a positive anthropology and an
optimism towards the world grounded in a sacramental worldview. Created in God’s image, humans
are relational beings, beings who are created to be lovers, to be givers of self, to be active in the
world as created co-creators who participate in its transformation so that personal and social sin is
diminished and human flourishing is promoted. The sacramental worldview recognizes the goodness
of the created order and the redemptive work of Christ already at work in the world. It is not
surprising then that there is a strong belief in the ability of human initiative to cooperate with God’s
grace and work to transform the world. Managerial leaders are positioned to control great reservoirs
of human, financial, physical and technological resources that can do just this. While there is no
natural right to ownership of these resources, there is an obligation to ensure that they are so used
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that they serve the needs of others such that the basic human needs of all are met.8
This belief in human abilities is rooted in an explicit understanding of the significance of work
in human life and of the responsibility all have to participate through work in the transformation of
the world. Such an attitude toward work is most obvious in the writings of Pope John Paul II, who
argues for the principle of the priority of labor over capital. Based on the belief that work is
constitutive of the human person, this principle recognizes that work assists humans in realizing
their full human potential and in fulfilling their responsibility to participate in communal efforts to
transform society as a means of fostering justice and the common good.9
Protestants agree that vocation is an individual response to a covenant-seeking God that is
first identified in baptism and declared again in public affirmations of faith. They also affirm that
humans are created in the image of God and that work is an inherent part of that image, designed to
meet individual needs and serve the human community.
Yet Protestant positions reflect a somewhat stronger emphasis on the effects of sin in
economic life. Both evangelical and mainline Protestants take to heart the curse on creation and
warnings of the Old Testament prophets about economic injustice. Protestant groups may presume
different balances between the residual effects of the fall and the emerging benefits of Christ’s
resurrection. Various Protestant groups may also gauge the scope of sin and redemption differently.
Some Protestant groups focused first on how sin affects the individual relationship with God, and
other groups emphasized that sin and redemption affect the whole of creation. Yet overall, the
Protestant position on human anthropology is somewhat less optimistic about the immediate human
capacity to transform the world. While managerial leaders are positioned to transform the economic
landscape, they must be mindful of their own mixed motives and unintended consequences of even
good initiatives.
Despite these differences in Roman Catholic and Protestant perspectives, together these
perspectives on the responsibilities of humans toward creation provide the basis for the claim that
managerial leadership can be understood as a vocation, that is, as a personal response to the
baptismal call to holiness and to love of God, neighbor and self. As Gary Chamberlain notes, there
is a significant convergence of Protestant and Catholic ideas about vocation in this regard (see
Chamberlain in this volume). This convergence of Christian ideas is a source of hope for corporate
life.
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Living out God’s Call as Corporate Business Leaders
Given that corporate leadership can be a Christian vocation, the challenge is to determine the
relationship of personal spiritual formation, managerial education and processes for ongoing
accountability that foster an authentic living out of that vocation. When one compares Roman
Catholicism and Protestantism, there are both similarities and differences in the pathways of
personal spiritual formation. They are shaped by different balances in the sources of faith-related
authority, different theological emphases and differences in faith formation. All three of these
factors frame an understanding of vocation related to business.
Sources of Faith-Related Authority
There are substantial differences in the faith-related sources of authority to which those who
view managerial leadership as a calling appeal. In the Roman Catholic tradition, a principal source of
authoritative teaching is found in Roman Catholic social thought. The seriousness with which the
Roman Catholic Church views the call to active participation in the transformation of society in an
effort to address social ills is demonstrated by the importance placed on its social teachings.10 These
teachings not only broaden the theological underpinnings for understanding managerial leadership
as a calling, but they also provide those in leadership positions with some practical guides. The
content of the documents ranges from papal encyclicals, addresses and other teachings to pastoral
letters written by individual bishops. Thus the authority of the teachings varies greatly. Though
addressed to different audiences in different historical and social contexts, at base, the various
documents that make up this rich tradition are concerned with social justice. As Michael Schuck has
so aptly shown in his study of papal encyclicals, the common characteristic found in this body of
teaching is a communitarian social ethic.11 At the heart of this ethic is concern for the common good
that promotes human flourishing for all.
When applied to economic flourishing, the concept of common good is seen to provide both
substantive and procedural conditions. In discussing the characteristics of the common good,
Bernard Brady has distinguished four general categories.
The first category is defined in terms of the basic needs of persons and the goods necessary to fulfill those
needs… They include basic elements of subsistence … The second category contains goods that literally
belong to the commons, to people… Both are concerned with tangible things persons and societies need
to survive and to flourish. The moral elements rest not in the goods themselves, but in the appropriate use,
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distribution and development of such goods… The third type of common goods would include the goods
that give identity and definition to the community… Finally, there exists the necessary means for the
promotion and protection of the first three categories of common goods. This category of common goods
highlights the necessary procedural element of the common good. Like the other three categories, the
procedural is to be defined in terms of the moral… The essence of the procedural element is that it
attempts to actualize the common good.12
To achieve the common good arguably the most significant concepts found in Roman
Catholic social teaching are solidarity, social responsibility and subsidiarity.13 In Part V of Sollicitudo
rei socialis, Pope John Paul II provides an extensive definition of solidarity.14 It is a virtue that
acknowledges the multi-faceted interdependence of individuals and sovereign states and subsidiarity
to be a principal by which the responsibility all have for one another, both individually and
corporately, develops in related social structures. The obligation arising from the principle of
solidarity is articulated well by the Australian bishops. “It is a commitment to work for the social,
economic, cultural, political and environmental conditions which will enable all human beings to
reach their maximum potential.”15 This commitment is lived out through active participation in the
many and varied activities of society. It is important to realize that participation is both a right and
an obligation, so it is incumbent on the faithful to ensure that none are marginalized and excluded
from active participation.16 In his examination of the teachings of many and varied bishops’
conferences, McGoldrick concludes: “Responsibility as the bishops interpret it has three sides: first,
to one’s neighbor in solidarity, second to the common good and third to one’s own task in
contributing to society.”17 From this perspective, the challenge for those whose vocation is
managerial leadership is to recognize their interdependence and to determine how best to contribute
to society and to the promotion of the common good. An essential aspect of meeting this challenge,
as J. Michael Stebbins demonstrates, is “correct understanding [that] leads to individual and
communal progress…” (see Stebbins in this volume). Also helpful are the efforts, made among
Roman Catholic theologians in response to Vatican II, to examine the place and use of Scripture in
moral theology as well as the relationship of Scripture to other sources of authority. The discussion
has, in part, revolved around the question of the distinctiveness of scriptural norms in particular and
Christian morality in general. Among those taking up this discussion early on was Bruno Schuller. As
William Spohn noted,
Schuller’s distinction between the exhortative and the normative has been widely accepted by Roman Catholic
moralists. Scripture thereby offers additional motivation that may be distinctive. For example, Jesus’ words “as
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I have loved you” add motivation to the general human obligation “love one another” in Jn 13:34. Scripture,
however, adds no special moral obligations or values that are not already mandated by our common humanity.
…Christian moral living may be distinctive, but there is no distinctively Christian set of moral obligations or
values.18
This remains the dominant view, which differs markedly from the Protestant emphasis on
Scripture, though there are those who question it. This includes Spohn who makes the case
that Scripture plays a more central role in the norms of Christian moral life than Schuller and others would
allow. In other words, the “as I have loved you” in Jn 13:34 enters constitutively into the content of the
command “love one another.” The way in which Jesus has loved the disciples, and by extension all
subsequent disciples, gives distinctive content to the love command. We are to love not only because Jesus
has loved us but in the same way that he has loved us. The Christian moral life becomes more specific
through the process of discipleship. Therefore the theologian cannot abstract from the particular history of
Jesus to define love in some universal way without losing some of the cognitive content of Christian
love.19
By contrast, while many Protestant churches agree that human beings are images of God and
leaders are called to be active transformers in the world, the faith-related sources that shape their
perspectives are more diverse. Because Protestantism has had such a fractured and fractious history
since the sixteenth century, it is difficult to characterize the whole of its perspective.
Characterizations of Protestant traditions on the matters of human identity and the common good
run the same risk as the allegorical blind man feeling the elephant trunk to define the whole beast.
When one touches only the waving proboscis of Protestant theology, the ponderous hind foot, also
a Protestant perspective, can be obscured.
Still, on the whole, Protestantism has placed significant emphases on direct interpretations of
the Bible, more so than relying on the social teachings of the church. This legacy of the Sola Scriptura
emphasis during the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation runs deep in Protestantism. Direct
Bible study becomes highly valued as a source of knowledge and perspective. From such study and
the related influence of religious leaders reading the same text, various Protestant denominations,
each with its own theological creeds and confessions, emerged over the centuries. Thus while the
history of Protestantism has shown some reticence about official church teachings on social issues,
allegiance to the implications of the Biblical text is strong and pervasive. In contrast to Schuller,
Protestants would see Scripture as normative for the moral obligations and values of Christians but
also filling a much bigger role. Scripture provides knowledge of God’s righteous expectations, sinful
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human shortfalls, and a roadmap for living in response to God’s grace in Christ. Christians are
gradually equipped to live rightly because of their knowledge of God’s Word. Scripture is the
principal feeder of Protestant perspectives and commitments. “The Oxford Declaration on
Christian Faith and Economics,” an evangelical statement, illustrates this point when it says,
We affirm that Scripture, the word of the living and true God, is our supreme authority in all matters of
faith and conduct. Hence, we turn to Scripture as our reliable guide in reflection on issues concerning
economic, social, and political life. As economists and theologians we desire to submit both theory and
practice to the bar of Scripture.20
Yet by the twentieth century, Protestants could be further differentiated by the range of faithrelated sources of authority they were willing to accept. For example, Methodists formally adopted
the quadrilateral of Scripture, experience, reason and religious tradition as their four sources of
authority on matters of vocation, with a strong emphasis on an obligation to help the poor. Scotch
Presbyterians merged a high view of Scripture with some accommodation to the Enlightenment’s
confidence in reason as a foundation for knowledge. This gave them confidence in their ability to
provide corporate leadership in society. Some groups such as the Southern Baptists differentiate
themselves from other mainline Protestant denominations by insisting that Scripture alone is the
lens through which our Christian perspectives should be framed. They adopted a more bounded
understanding of Biblical inerrancy, placed a heavy focus on evangelism and seemed less concerned
about connections to the policies of corporate America.
Groups further from the mainline churches developed other frames for faith-based authority.
Dutch Calvinists remained suspicious of reason as a tool for understanding faith and the world,
adopted a more flexible approach to Biblical infallibility, and insisted on integrating faith with work;
but, as new immigrants to the United States, often they did not find themselves in corporate
leadership. Historically they lacked the experience of more embedded American denominations.
Pentecostals, one of the massive Protestant growth groups since the early 1900s, value Scripture but
place a premium on direct experience. Yet like the Dutch-Calvinists, they were relative newcomers,
and their roots in the working class did not easily lead to corporate leadership positions. Nondenominational community churches, one of the growth movements of contemporary
Protestantism, include an intersection of any and all of the above influences, which are embodied in
the range of Christians from different backgrounds who have joined their fellowships.21 Thus the
Protestant branch of the Christian church lacks both a unified source of authority and a unified
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sense of experience about vocation, identity and social ethics.
Despite this lack of a unifying set of social teachings, many Protestant traditions are coming to
embrace managerial leadership as a calling, principally through their explications of Scripture. They
believe the words of Genesis 1:27-28, which say, “So God created man in his own image, in the
image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to
them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea
and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” (New
International Version) From such passages, Protestants, like Roman Catholics, affirm humans as
images of God, made in relationship to God and to each other, humans with responsibility for the
world. Managerial leadership, then, is increasingly viewed as one means for responding to God’s
command to be agents in God’s world.
The concept of the common good is less fully explicated in fractured Protestantism than is the
case in Roman Catholic social teachings. Thus, while many Protestant groups may affirm managerial
leadership as a Christian calling, the scope of one’s responsibilities within that role may be perceived
more narrowly. Love of God through active worship and evangelism are a priority. Work is seen as
an inherent part of personhood with ethical parameters on one’s personal behavior. Yet Protestants
may differ more widely than Roman Catholics on the reach and range of one’s social responsibility.
Those differences in understanding are likely the result of a different balance in the sources of faithrelated authority.
Theological Emphases
These contrasts in the sources of faith-related authority are further shaped by different lenses
through which the Triune God is perceived. Theologically, there are two questions. First, how do
different traditions understand the role of each person of the Trinity? Second, how do these faith
traditions comprehend the interrelationship of members of the Trinity with each other?
Roman Catholic moral theologians increasingly place emphasis on interrelatedness of the
Trinity to ground anthropological claims, particularly as they regard Christian discipleship and the
moral life. They insist on the inherent dignity of all human persons, a dignity that is present simply
because humans are created in the image and likeness of a Triune God who is holy and loving within
the Trinity itself. As Michael and Kenneth Himes note
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… in our traditional imagery, the Father gives himself to the Son, the Son gives himself totally to the Father,
and the Spirit, proceeding from both, is the bond of that pure agapic love. In frequently used patristic imagery,
God is the lover, the beloved, and the love between them. … God is the very fullness of relatedness.22
The anthropological claims that flow from this interrelated understanding of the Trinity are
significant for understanding vocational identity. It is a likeness that points to the fact that humans,
as social beings, are called to be holy and loving toward each other.
Protestant traditions of Christianity vary tremendously in which person of the Trinity receives
the most emphasis. Typically, the Presbyterians and other groups with Calvinist roots place a strong
emphasis on the role of the Father as the creator and sustainer of the universe. This likely stems
from the writings of John Calvin in which he notes the universe as the “works of God open and
manifest in this most beautiful theatre,” works that cultivates the sensus in all people.23 Within the
Father’s work then, human beings are place as stewards and agents of the garden to “work it and
take care of it” (Gen. 2:15, NIV). In this framework, corporate managerial leadership is important
because individuals in leadership positions are understood to be stewards preserving the creation
and agents cultivating it to fullness.
Other Protestant traditions place less emphasis on the role of the Father in creation. They pay
much more attention to the disobedience of Adam and Eve and the fall into sin from which each
human must be redeemed. The fall into sin greatly complicates the possibility of a worthy human
contribution in any sphere of society. Both individuals and society are saturated with sin and evil
from which humanity needed to be saved through a Redeeming Christ, the only mediator between
God and humans. In economic life, Protestants see sin in human work as “a painful testimony to
human estrangement from God” because such work is filled with alienation and injustice24; and they
see evil in the “destructive patterns of thought, culture and relationships, which keep men and
women in bondage to poverty and deprivation.”25
In response, Protestantism has a spectrum of understanding about the redeeming work of
Christ. On one end of that spectrum, some Protestant groups focus almost exclusively on the work
of Christ in redeeming individuals from a life that is cut off from God. Personal salvation, bridging
individual estrangement from God, is the goal of evangelism. On the other end of that spectrum,
other Protestant groups focus on Christ as the renewer of the creation. Because of that work,
Christians have a new platform for working in the world for social transformation and the possibility
of a new creation. Each end of the spectrum has its challenges. Those groups that focus on personal
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salvation are less invested in the possibility of major Christian influence on corporate structures
through their leaders since the work of restoration is for the individual not the society. Still they
work to cultivate individuals who are personally clothed with Christian virtues and values. Those
groups that focus on Christ as the social transformer, encouraging corporate leadership to influence
social structures, often wield creative influence in society. Yet the need for the individual leader
involved to be personally redeemed and cleansed by the blood of Christ may be neglected.26
There are similar differences within Protestantism about the Holy Spirit. Confessing
Protestants do affirm the work of the Spirit in redemption, conversion, and ongoing sanctification.
Yet some Protestants, particularly Pentecostal ones, rely more heavily on the visible work of the
Spirit to prepare hearts for conversion through special signs and wonders. They would not be
described as mystical. Yet they believe in the power of personal prayer and the direct action of the
Spirit. Others would regard the typical work of the Spirit as more subtle, as the refreshing breath
that blows through creation enlivening its rotted social bones. They tend to find the Spirit in their
daily action instead of routine contemplation. With such an understanding, these latter groups
believe that God is at work through the daily organizational renewal that is possible when corporate
leaders are diligent and focused on good values.
Overall, in Protestantism there seems to be an emphasis on the distinctive, separate but equally
important contributions of the three members of the Trinity in shaping perspectives on economic
life and work, while, as noted above, contemporary Roman Catholic theology emphasizes the
interrelatedness of the Trinity. What is clear is that theology of the Trinity affects Christian
perspectives on the scope and role of those called to managerial leadership. Whether their ideas
about the nature of the Trinity are explicit or implicit, they can result in different emphases for
Christian managers.
Formation for Vocational Identity
Despite differing theological emphases, Roman Catholic and Protestant traditions take
seriously the need for formation of members of the faith community. A primary goal of faith
formation is to be formed in the way of Christ. It is through Jesus, the Christ, the beloved one of
God, that Christians are able to come to know God, to love God and to serve God in response to
God’s call to holiness. Vocational discernment rests on coming to know and experience God’s
presence in their lives, recognizing the gifts and talents with which they have been bestowed and
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understanding how they are being called to use those gifts and talents. Coming to know and
experience God is essential for both Roman Catholic and Protestant Christians.
For Roman Catholics, one of the primary places where Christ’s presence is experienced is in
the celebration of the Eucharist. Roman Catholics are a sacramental people, who make the claim
that something real happens when a baptism or a marriage is celebrated. They make the claim that
God is truly present at Eucharistic celebrations and that by sharing in that celebration and partaking
of that Eucharistic bread and wine, participants are somehow transformed and united to one
another in Christ. This rite, this tradition shapes and forms the faith community and should inform
decisions, judgments of conscience, of the faithful. This is reflected in the dismissal rite at the end of
Mass: “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.” Clearly, this is an ethical imperative. It is shorthand
for saying that what has been said and what has been done at the Eucharistic celebration means
something. It is transformative and requires participants to act accordingly.
A second way in which God is experienced and the understanding of God and God’s love for
humans is deepened is through those special life-giving, loving human relationships. It is through
the experience of someone else’s generous and unselfish love, when respect is shown or needs and
concerns are taken seriously, when trust and honesty form the context of the relationship, that
humans are provided with a glimpse of the way the Triune God loves. At the same time they are
provided with a glimpse of the way they are meant to love. These experiences not only form and
shape people, they also challenge them to emulate—not imitate or mimic—but emulate this love in
all relations with others and all responses to their needs and concerns.
A third way of coming to know and experience God is through aesthetic experiences. These
experiences—a beautiful sunset that leaves an individual awestruck or silent, or a newborn infant’s
tiny little hand that commands wonder at the perfection of it, or something extraordinary or majestic
that leads to a sense that there is more to life—all point to the transcendent, to God. The insights
gained through such experiences provide the believer with a deeper understanding of who God is as
well as a sense of who he or she is called to become. Implicit in that call to holiness is the call to
develop full gifts and talents and to place them at the service of others in an effort to contribute to
the common good.
The formative dimension of these three ways of coming to know and experience God are
enhanced through catechesis and ongoing faith formation, including the development of a life of
prayer, contemplation and reflection, which are essential to Christian formation and which foster
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what Andre Delbecq has identified as “the need to integrate the sense of spiritual calling with work”
(see Delbecq in this volume). While these activities are at one level individual, they are undertaken in
the context of the larger faith community and reflect the social dimension of human life with its
duties and obligation to foster social transformation and human flourishing. The challenge for the
church and its ministers is to provide ongoing catechesis and opportunities for reflection for those
who are called to managerial leadership in the corporate sphere. In this way, they will have the
opportunity to be grounded in and nurtured by God’s love, which provides the opportunity to
deepen their understanding of their vocational identity and the impetus to respond to it more fully.
Protestants would approach the matter of vocational formation from a somewhat different
balance within this framework of sacraments, love and aesthetics. They would also add a very
significant fourth dimension to this framework for vocational formation, namely the cultivation of
Biblical knowledge.
There may be few differences between a Roman Catholic and Protestant theology of love.
Common understandings flow from the commands to “love the Lord your God with all your heart
and with all your soul and with all your mind” and to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew
22:37; 30, NIV). As already noted, there are some Protestant differences over the place of creation
as a source of divine knowledge. Yet the biggest differences related to vocational formation will flow
from the roles of the Eucharist and of the Bible.
Protestant expectations about the ethical imperatives that flow from partaking of Eucharistic
bread and wine are muted. Many Protestants are more likely to emphasize such communion
celebrations as memorials of Christ’s sacrifice for their sins. In part, this sense that the Eucharist is
remembrance of the past instead of the active presence of Christ stems from great controversies
over the nature of communion at the time of the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation when
the reformers worried that the Roman Catholic approach to the Eucharist might convey a sense of
magical power. Early Protestants distanced themselves from that perception and stressed that the
bread and wine were not the actual body and blood of Christ. Lutherans then suggested that the
elements were somehow transformed into the body and blood of Christ. Ulrich Zwingli argued that
communion was a remembrance through symbolism. John Calvin believed that participation in this
event thickened our union with Christ but was unsure of the process since he did not want to
believe that the elements were the actual body and blood of Christ. Thus, the historical focus for
Protestants has been more on the remembrance of Christ’s death than on his present effect in the
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Eucharist.27 While more Protestants are now recovering and reemphasizing the central presence of
Christ in regular communion celebrations, the long controversy over the nature of the Eucharist has
blunted its influence on vocational formation.
Instead of the major influence of the Eucharist, Protestants have placed a high value on
internalizing Biblical knowledge as a source of vocational formation. Through Sunday School, Bible
learning in weekday, boys and girls clubs, parent-run Christian day schools and continuing adult
Bible study, Protestants read and study Biblical content. Old Testament stories, commands and
prophecies as well as New Testament narratives, parables and letters are considered the raw material
for vocational formation. Any calling from God should mirror the faith of Abraham and Isaac as
well as the examples of Jesus and Paul; and a particular calling to corporate leadership might rely on
the example of Nehemiah, the concerns of Amos, the story of the rich young man (Mark 10: 17-31),
the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30) and the story of convert Lydia (Acts 16:13-15). From
such sources, ideas are developed for managerial vision, economic justice, ultimate treasures, the use
of gifts and Christian hospitality. Together they build a framework for understanding God’s unique
personal call in the circumstances of one’s life.
It is likely that differences in formative influence have developed Christians with varying ideas
about the goals of their work, the people with whom they work, and the efficacy of their actions.
The implications of these particular pathways for the personal spiritual formation of managerial
leaders need further research. Yet, together, faith-related sources of authority, theological emphases
and the paths of faith formation provide part of the grounding for Christians who aspire to
corporate leadership as a vocation.
The Influence of Management Education
The second area that impacts the degree to which individual Christian corporate leaders
understand their work as a response to God’s call and effectively live out that call is formal business
education. Such education may or may not intersect with perspectives compatible with Christianity.
Business school philosophies and programs differ in the messages provided to future managerial
leaders. As noted early in this paper, those in positions of leadership in the corporate world are in
positions to place the resources that they control at the service of the larger society. They have
primary responsibility for the production of goods and services available to and used by members of
society. Yet understandings of what those responsibilities entail have changed over time. Different
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business schools will reflect varying understandings.
Throughout business and its related schools, there has always been a fundamental assumption
that the reason to produce goods and services is the provision for basic human needs in society.
This is exemplified by the chartering or incorporation of private companies by state governmental
bodies. In the United States, the fifty states are responsible for the public good and the well-being of
all members of society. They hand over to corporations and their leaders the responsibility for goods
and services needed by the people for day-to-day living.
While the responsibility of corporate leaders to provide such goods and services has always
been implied in the structure of the economic system in the United States, as the system developed,
greater emphasis was placed on the responsibility to provide a return on capital to those who
invested in corporations or otherwise supplied the material resources needed for production of
goods and services. For many, providing an adequate return on investment was the means to insure
the production of goods and services needed by society. Though voices of dissent existed, this view
led to widespread acceptance of the belief that the primary, if not exclusive, responsibility of
corporate leaders was to insure an adequate return to investors.
Over time this position found its way into the education and training of corporate leaders.
Particularly during the 1960s and early 1970s, as business schools transformed themselves from
more technical training institutes to managerial graduate schools, this was the prevailing viewpoint.28
In terms of social responsibility and ethics, education focused on personal integrity and honesty and
issues of compliance with legal requirements in the context of providing an adequate, if not
maximum, return on investment to shareholders. Though employees, suppliers, consumers and
others were considered, managers and other corporate leaders made decisions about corporate
activities primarily in the context of profit performance. This led to narrowly focused managerial
decision-making processes.
One result was a tendency to give little attention to the complex ways in which decisions made
and actions taken by corporate leaders affected non-shareholders with a stake in corporate activities.
As corporations grew and their influence became more broadly felt, the tendency to adopt such
narrow decision making processes was viewed with greater and greater concern. Among the
responses to this concern was the stakeholder theory of management, which holds that long-term
success is best achieved if managerial decision making processes give consideration to the needs and
concerns of stakeholders—all those who have a stake in the company—and to the consequences of
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corporate decisions and actions on those stakeholders.
By the mid 1980s, the stakeholder theory of management was part of the mainstream of
business education and training. This broadened the scope of corporate social responsibility and
expanded managerial decision-making processes. It did not, however, create an approach to
corporate decision-making that in itself resulted in less focus on directly measurable profits.
Some business educators and corporations adopted the stakeholder theory as a means of
achieving greater profits. Stakeholder needs and concerns are given consideration, but responding to
them is based on the effect such a response will have on corporate profits. In this approach
stakeholders are merely instrumental. Their needs are addressed when it is to the benefit of the
corporation and its ability to provide an adequate return on investment. In cases where stakeholders
have no impact on the corporation and its profitability, their needs and concerns are peripheral. In
terms of corporate social responsibility, this represents a minimalist approach where duties and
obligations of managerial or corporate leadership focus primarily on providing a return on
investment to shareholders. Criteria for effective and accountable leadership focus on policies and
actions as these relate more narrowly to profit performance and legal compliance. This narrow focus
on profits can be a contributing factor to creating corporate environments that foster and reward
those who creatively push the limits of legality.
Within this narrow focus on profits, the corresponding presumption was that ethical decisions
could be made based on rational analysis of the multiple factors involved. If a firm did proper
analytical research on the prospective effects of various ethical choices, then an appropriate decision
based on reason could prevail. This particular model, based on Kohlberg’s approach to moral
reasoning, presumed that ethical choices and ethical limits could and should be calculated by the
corporation. During the early 1980s, Arthur Andersen enthusiastically taught this model to business
school faculty at its corporate training center in Illinois.29
However, other business schools and corporations viewed the stakeholder theory of
management as a way of bringing the needs and concerns of all stakeholders, including investors and
shareholders, into the decision making process not simply in terms of their effect on profitability,
but because the needs and concerns are recognized in their own right. There is still a concern for
corporate profitability and a recognition that it is necessary for continuing operation in the
marketplace. However, there is a recognition that corporate social responsibility goes beyond duties
and obligations to investors and shareholders and includes responsibilities to employees, suppliers,
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consumers and others with legitimate interests who are affected by corporate decisions and actions.
This approach balances the often competing needs and concerns of stakeholders, attempting to
enrich the public good while providing for as many interests as possible. Criteria for effective and
accountable leadership focus on oversight and creativity in business strategies, policies and actions
that relate more broadly to social transformation and human flourishing. Such different goals for
leadership result in different theories about what constitutes visionary and principled leadership.
In this broader stakeholder framework, socially responsible and ethical leadership is viewed as
a form of integrity management. For James A. Waters this involves intentionality about including
ethical questions and values in managerial discussions and decision-making processes. As Waters
notes, “It is an explicit recognition that the interests of both shareholders and the larger society are
best served when managers and organizations act with a sense of social integrity.”30 Waters provides
a helpful distinction between actions of a manager as an individual which, though they might take
place in an organizational setting, are not related to managerial responsibilities and actions of a
manager qua manager, which are directly related to his or her organizational role. The former focus
on personal integrity and include decisions about personal dishonesty over opportunities to
embezzle, pad an expense account and steal supplies from the organization. The latter focus on the
integrity of the manager in his or her functional position and are concerned with inhibiting unethical
behavior, or what might be called managerial dishonesty.
In arguing for managers qua managers to develop and act on a sense of social integrity, the
focus is on providing an organizational or corporate environment that fosters behaviors that
promote the well-being of society as a whole. Creating such a corporate culture and developing
internal systems and structures that foster ethical behavior is the responsibility of managerial
leadership. Waters is clear:
Integrity management is the particular responsibility of senior managers, since they are the custodians of
an organization’s basic culture… Senior managers must participate in the good conversations that are the
heart of integrity management and facilitate those discussions among others, since that is the only way to
establish the clarity and authority of the legal and ethical standards that are to hold sway in particular
organizations.31
Such senior leadership will reduce unethical actions that harm both organizations and the
societies in which they are located.
This and other approaches to managerial leadership are a reminder that many but not all
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involved in managerial education believe that corporate social responsibility is broad in nature and
that corporate leaders have the duty and obligation to use their gifts, talents and power in ways that
build up the fabric of society and contribute to human flourishing. The scandals described above
and others like them make it clear that not all in leadership positions use their talents or exercise
their power in socially responsible ways. Perhaps they have not been educated to do so. However,
many corporate leaders have been taught about and actively seek socially responsible and ethical
choices. Such leaders use their talents, creativity, vision and power not only to create a corporate
culture that fosters ethical leadership, but also to contribute to the creation of a society that fosters
the human flourishing of all its members.
There are no clear and simple divides among the providers of managerial education regarding
different interpretations of stakeholder theory and the related implications for ethical organizational
leadership. Deep and substantial discussions may occur in either public or private business schools,
depending on the perspectives and values of the faculty. There are few Protestant Christian graduate
schools of business.32 Within them it is possible to develop and teach a clear perspective on business
as a Christian vocation, such as that articulated in the theological statement of Seattle Pacific
University’s business school (see Van Duzer et al. in this volume). Yet it is clear that most of the
advanced discussion is taking place in either Roman Catholic or secular university business schools
because of their greater history and maturity. The central question is: which institutions have the
most potential and capacity to shape leaders with values compatible to those expressed in the first
section of this paper? Which institutions can connect with other sources of personal spiritual
formation to develop corporate managerial leaders with a Christian vocation?
Public and private secular university business schools often discuss stakeholder theory and the
parameters for ethical management. In the context of a pluralistic society, many of them do what
they can to develop business leaders with broader visions of business in society and to cultivate
some measure of ethical consciousness. There are constitutional boundaries that inhibit publicly
funded university business schools from adopting religiously based vocational foundations for
managerial leadership in educating managers. However, it is important to recognize that public and
private secular institutions and professional societies can and do contribute in significant ways to
discussions that focus on religion and spirituality in the workplace as well as discussions that
question economic, psychological and sociological theories that support more socially responsible
approaches to organizational and management theories.33
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Public and private secular university business schools have a very broad spectrum of faculty
perspectives on such topics as do most Roman Catholic institutions. However, it would seem that
Roman Catholic graduate business schools are in the best position to lead the way in the formative
shaping of Christian business leaders. There is a rich and contemporary tradition of church
discussion about economic structures, business values and managerial leadership to which some of
these schools have contributed and on which all of them can draw. Such avenues create an unusually
good opportunity for Roman Catholic business schools, particularly at the graduate level, to educate
students regarding the intersection of Christian vocation and managerial leadership.
Sources of Accountability and Ongoing Formation
The third area that impacts the degree to which individual Christian corporate leaders
understand their work as a response to God’s call and effectively live out that call is ongoing
accountability and vocational formation. Formed by their various relationships, social groups and
faith communities and educated in business schools, prospective managerial leaders readily join
existing business organizations. Each of these organizations has its own culture, strategic goals and
priorities as well as opportunities for ongoing professional development and structures of
accountability. In some instances, those who understand their work in the corporate world as a way
of living out their baptismal commitment will find the values, priorities and structures of
accountability in these organizations to be compatible with their vocational aspirations. In some
cases corporate values, priorities and/or structures of accountability will conflict. In the former case,
the challenge is to maintain and strengthen existing organizational structures while attending to
ongoing professional development and faith formation in an effort to deepen vocational identity and
to live out effectively that identity. In the latter case, the challenge is more extensive. It will
sometimes lead to situations which necessitate hard choices that include asking probing questions
about the corporate mission and its underlying values, speaking out in situations of injustice,
working for structural change within the organization or even seeking employment at a more
compatible organization.
Responding to either scenario is a complex process. The faith community is not the only
formative community to which those in corporate leadership belong; nor is it the only community to
which those in corporate leadership are accountable. It does, however, have a considerable role to
play in the initial process of faith formation and vocational discernment. The faith community also
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has a considerable role as a source of spiritual sustenance and ongoing accountability, particularly as
these relate to assisting managerial leaders in being faithful to their vocation.
By comparison, the corporate organizations that these women and men join have an obvious
interest in their performance and continuing development. Firms orient employees, particularly
managerial staff, to their business strategies, customers, products and people. In-house and external
training sessions, structured consultations and other activities familiarize young managers with the
organization and assist them in developing technical skills and leadership styles specific to it.
Managers’ ability to adapt to the organization and its culture, strategic goals and priorities will be
evaluated through regular performance reviews and assessments. In addition to assessing on-the-job
performance, such structures of accountability are designed to instill corporate values and bring
employees into the organizational culture. Ordinarily these reviews and assessments do not ask
fundamental questions about the mission and culture of the organization, and in organizations that
prefer not to struggle with such questions there can be an atmosphere of resistance toward persons
who attempt to ask such questions. For the most part, performance reviews and professional
development activities become powerful forces for inculcating younger managers into the ethical
and operational web of the existing organization, be it an organization that fosters growth in
vocational identity or one that hinders such growth.
It is apparent, both from historical and recent experience in business, that such corporate webs
have powerful implications for the way in which emerging leaders view their roles and
responsibilities and ask about or are concerned with the ethical dimensions of business practices.
For example, over a century later, common but problematic product and pricing strategies that led
to the Sherman Antitrust Act (1890) continue to be challenges in industry. More recently in the
Microsoft case it seemed difficult for those involved to recognize problems with their product
bundling strategies.34 Similarly, in the foreign bribery scandals of the early 1970s, few of the
managers involved either perceived the existence of any ethical problems with their activities or
questioned the morality of common international business gift practices. Yet despite the fact that the
1970s laws associated with these business scandals were updated again in the late 1990s,35 similar
problems in corporate culture have been exhibited recently. Few at Enron appeared to question the
high energy, high leverage, high risk and high pay environment in which they operated or wonder
about the segregated financial entities that were accumulating massive losses. Similarly at
WorldCom, accountants who should have pondered egregious accounting irregularities, a lack of
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conformance to general accepted accounting principles differentiating capital and operating
expenses, did not do so. They were likewise self-confident about unlimited growth through mergers
and acquisitions that could hide a multitude of accounting irregularities.
Yet when the financial collapse of these and other large corporate entities caused substantial
harm to stakeholders, particularly shareholders and employees, there seemed to be little
acknowledgment of responsibility for the harm done. There were a few whistleblowers who came
forward. However, the vast majority of senior leaders in these companies appeared to be so caught
in the ethos of their respective corporate cultures and business practices that they did not recognize
the incompatibility of those cultures and practices with their Christian commitment, or if they did,
were unable or unwilling to challenge the practices. Without ongoing faith formation and sources of
accountability outside of the workplace, including church related ones, it is easy for vocational
identity to be overshadowed by corporate identity that has been shaped by the organization. This is
true even for those who were formed early in life in the Christian tradition and, in some cases, still
maintain denominational affiliation. Thus, churches, Protestant and Roman Catholic alike, are faced
with the challenge not only of meeting needs for ongoing faith formation, but also of holding people
accountable in ways that assist them in responding to and living out their vocational identity as
managerial leaders.
One response has been the creation over the past quarter century of faith-based groups for
men and women in management. In Protestant circles, these groups are often regionally based or
denominationally specific. For example, the Fellowship of Companies for Christ, based in Atlanta,
Georgia, has a significant influence in the southeastern United States and some smaller pockets of
strength elsewhere.36 The Avodah Institute, begun and operated by Dr. David Miller, an ordained
Presbyterian, works with many East Coast corporate leaders on the intersection of faith and work.37
In the mid 1980s, a group of Boston area business leaders began a forum called First Tuesday. In
Texas, Laity Lodge has been similarly influential.38 The Mennonite Economic Development
Association (MEDA) draws together those of Anabaptist backgrounds and perspectives to discuss
business mission and work for economic justice in the developing world.39 Partners for Christian
Development (PCD) attracts those of Calvinist orientation, particularly in the Christian Reformed
Church and Reformed Church of America, to similar conferences, networks and workshops about
business mission, business ethics and partnership with third world Christians in business.40 These
and other similar groups are providing opportunities for Christians in business to explore their
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continuing vocational formation in relationship to their faith. These are organizations in which
Christian business people can come together and talk to one another about the appropriate balance
of stakeholder interests and questions of business integrity. Their members sense that they are
among Christian peers who not only understand the nature of the corporate world but also strive to
match their common Christian calling to the specific vocations they have in business.
Similar groups exist within Roman Catholic circles. Some, such as the Crossroads Center at
Old St. Patrick’s Church in Chicago, are local parish or diocesan groups; others, such as the
Woodstock Business Conference, are affiliated with Roman Catholic educational institutions, while
still others are national organizations. The groups represent a spectrum of theological positions and
vary from those that focus narrowly on the Roman Catholic perspective to those that include
ecumenical and/or interfaith perspectives. The Crossroads Center, founded over 15 years ago,
focuses on the integration of faith and work. Its missions is “to facilitate the integration of our
spiritual and work lives, addressing the necessary balance between personal and professional
development, the forces of commerce and compassion, and our need to make money as well as
make meaning.”41 The center is affiliated with national organizations such as Business Leaders for
Ethics Excellence and Justice (BEEJ) and Individual Practitioners (IP). “BEEJ is a group of senior
executives working in a corporate setting committed to integrating Christian values in their business
practices. The IP level is for entrepreneurs, small business owners and people working from home
offices.”42
The Woodstock Business Conference (WBC) is sponsored by the Woodstock Theological
Center, which is based at Georgetown University. WBC’s mission “is to establish and lead a national
network of business leaders to explore their respective religious traditions in order to assist the
individual executives: a) to integrate faith, family and professional life, b) to develop a corporate
culture that is reflective of their religious faith and values, c) to exercise a beneficial influence upon
society at large.”43 While its roots are in the Roman Catholic tradition, it is open to business women
and men of all faith traditions. The strengths of WBC are its intentionality and the structured
process provided by the format for chapter meetings. Local chapters have access to resources—
including case studies, discussion guides and background materials—developed by the national
office, and their members can participate in conferences, workshops and other activities sponsored
by the national office.
Another national group of interest is Catholic Women@Work, which was “established to
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support Roman Catholic working women who seek to integrate their Christian principles and beliefs
with their professional responsibilities and the realities of the workplace.”44 It was founded in the
late 1990s by Susan Toscanni of Forbes Magazine who insists
that a forum such as this holds great promise for the clients and industries we serve, for our work product,
for our culture, and even for the generations of working women to come. This belief is based on our
conviction that religion, ethics and personal responsibility are compatible with professional success. In
addition, Catholic Women@Work promotes the view that the "feminine genius" is a true asset in the
workplace. Indeed, the workplace needs the input and contributions of women who live their Christian
beliefs and seek to integrate who they are with what they do45
A recently formed group, Working In Faith (WIF), strives “to provide opportunities for
Catholic working people to discuss workplace related issues, to educate them on the Catholic faith,
and to provide networking opportunities with other like-minded people.”46 Though the formation of
local groups is encouraged and plans call for national, regional and local conferences, this
organization’s primary avenue for accomplishing its mission is through the internet and the
resources provided through its website. Though their interpretation and application of that teaching
may differ, common to all these groups is their rootedness in Roman Catholic social teaching and
their desire to assist men and women in business to understand the vocational nature of their work
and find greater meaning in their lives.
These groups, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, are important and provide both ongoing
faith formation and avenues for accountability that are necessary to meeting the life-long challenge
of living out vocational identity. The groups must multiply and deepen if they are to serve their
members effectively. For many Christians they can provide a needed source of accountability and
continuing development that is not available elsewhere, as David Specht and Dick Broholm illustrate
in their description of the organization Seeing Things Whole (see Specht and Broholm in this
volume). However, the growth of such groups will also depend on the resources and thinking that
are developed by Christian business educators as they think through the questions of business
mission and engage new ethical questions presenter by concerned business practitioners. The path
between Christian business educators and such practitioner groups should become one well worn in
both directions.
However, such groups while necessary are not sufficient. For these groups to have the greatest
impact, their relationship to the larger faith community must be more explicit and better understood,
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so that all members of the faith community will recognize their role and responsibility for providing
support and encouragement to those who are called to managerial leadership as a vocation. This
includes, when necessary, being willing to challenge them and hold them accountable.
This responsibility is grounded in baptism and the recognition that Christians are baptized into
a community through which salvation is achieved. That is, salvation is not simply individual.
Members of the faith community are responsible to and for one another. This means that among the
virtues all must cultivate is what Bernard Häring calls the virtue of critique.47 This virtue calls on all
to both give and receive constructive criticism that is grounded in mutuality and shows respect for
and love of others even as they are held accountable and challenged to be more responsive to their
vocational identity. This responsibility is acknowledge in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults
which makes it clear that
the community must always be ready to fulfill its apostolic vocation by giving help to those who need
Christ. In the various circumstances of daily life, as in the apostolate, each disciple of Christ has the
obligation of spreading the faith according to his capability. However, the community must help the
candidates and catechumens throughout their whole period of initiation, during the precatechumenate, the
catechumenate and the period of postbaptismal catechesis or mystagogia.48
For the belief that through baptism all are made one in Christ and that through active
participation in the liturgy all continue to be shaped and formed in holiness to be lived out more
authentically, it falls on ministers, teachers and others in leadership positions within the church to
catechize the faithful, so that all members of the faith community understand more fully their
responsibility to and for one another, including those who are called to managerial leadership in the
corporate sphere. The well-being and growth of the community is at stake.
Conclusion
Corporate managerial leadership can be a Christian calling of great significance in marshaling
resources to serve common humanity from both Roman Catholic and Protestant Christian
perspectives. Managerial leadership can be a channel through which God can be served in profound
ways in our response to what we have received (see Haughey in this volume). Yet it is clear that this
does not always happen. Faith and work can be compatible, personally and spiritually rewarding, as
well as be a means for responding to God’s gift of love and relationship. Yet the potential for
serious disconnects between early personal spiritual formation and corporate leadership must be
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PART III: FORMATION OF BUSINESS LEADERS
recognized. Sometimes the loosening of connections begins in business school where subtle
messages about corporate mission and ethical responsibility undermine faith-based values and
perspectives on business. The disconnect can become greater if powerful corporate cultures are not
complemented by other sources of accountability and ongoing faith formation that assist individuals
in living out their vocational identity.
To lessen the occurrence of such disconnects, faith-based business schools must work to
expand the intersection of faith and managerial work in their business curricula. The emerging
networks of Christian business professionals and groups sustaining them should be encouraged and
supported in their efforts to bridge the gap between the calling and the corporation. Members of the
faith community must take seriously their responsibility to support and challenge their sisters and
brothers who are called to managerial leadership. Through such diverse yet interrelated efforts the
witness of the church and the well-being of common humanity can flourish.
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See "How Tyco's CEO Enriched Himself," Wall Street Journal, August 7, 2002, p. 1, which detailed an extravagant lifestyle, personal
loans of corporate funds, and $6000 shower curtain; or "The Fallen," Business Week Online, January 13, 2002 found at
http://www.businessweek.com/@@KQwGtoQQkGVy@gEA/magazine/content/03_02/b3815658.htm
2 John Byrne, "Seton Hall of Shame?" Business Week Online, Sept 20, 2002 found at
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/sep2002/nf20020920_9297.htm. In 2001, Kozlowski addressed students in the
business school on integrity and professionalism, which now raises questions of what is being taught.
3 Michael Novak, Business as Calling: Work and the Examined Life (New York,: Free Press, 1996), p. 22. See also "High Profiles in Hot
Water", Wall Street Journal, June 28, 2002, p. B1.
4 "WorldCom Investigations Shift Focus to Ousted CEO Ebbers," Wall Street Journal, July 1, 2002, p. 1.
5 Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, Chicago Catholic, January 7, 1983 found at http://www.dioceseofscranton.org/vocation/parenttheoofvoc.htm.
6 See Lumen gentium, no.11, in Renewing the earth: Catholic documents on peace, justice, and liberation ed. by David A. O'Brien and
Thomas A. Shannon (Garden City, NY: Image Books, 1977).
7 Lee Hardy, "Our Work, God's Providence: The Christian Concept of Vocation," chap. 2, in The Fabric of This World (Grand Rapids,
MI: Eerdmans Publishing, 1990), 44-76. This book provides a further explication of the Protestant concept of vocation.
8 Manuel Velasquez, "Catholic Natural Law and Business Ethics," in Spiritual Goods: Faith Traditions and the Practice of Business, ed.
Stewart W. Herman with Arthur Gross Schaefer, (Bowling Green, OH: Philosophy Documentation Center, 2001), 107-35, particularly
113-14. This obligation is grounded in the natural law tradition, which understands private property as a social convention rather than
a natural right. Velasquez discusses Roman Catholic natural law tradition and the implications for business.
9 Pope John Paul II, Laborem exercens, in Origins 11 (September 24, 1981): 225-44, particularly no. 6, discusses the priority of labor over
capital.
10 It is important to recognize that this body of teaching is not to be confused with the social implications of faith. See for example, J.
Bryan Hehir, "John Paul II: Continuity and Change in the Social Teaching of the Church," in Co-Creation and Capitalism, ed. John
Houck and Oliver Williams (Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1983). He notes that social teaching is understood as an
"effort to provide a systematic, normative theory relating the social vision of faith to the concrete conditions" in which contemporary
men and women find themselves. Hehir, 125.
11 Michael Schuck, That They May Be One: The Social Teachings of the Papal Encyclicals 1740-1989 (Washington, DC: Georgetown
University Press, 1991).
12 Bernard Brady, Rights, the Common Good and Roman Catholic Social Thought (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Doctoral
Dissertation, 1988), 258-60.
13 Terry McGoldrick, "Episcopal Conferences Worldwide on Catholic Social Teaching," Theological Studies 59 (1998) 22-50.
McGoldrick found that solidarity and responsibility are the two most prominent concepts in Episcopal documents worldwide.
14 John Paul II, Sollicitudo rei socialis, particularly pars. 38, 39, and 45 found at
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_30121987_sollicitudo-rei-socialis_en.html
15 Australian Bishops Conference, "A New Beginning: Eradicating Poverty in Our World," Catholic International, 8 (September 1996):
70.
16 McGoldrick, Theological Studies, See "The Common Good and the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church" in which the bishops of
England and Wales argue that "[t]he first responsibility of every citizen toward the common good … is to watch that no one in the
community becomes marginalized.", 42.
17 McGoldrick, 42.
18 William C. Spohn, "The Use of Scripture in Moral Theology," Theological Studies, 47.1 (March 1986): 100.
19 William C. Spohn, "The Use of Scripture in Moral Theology," 109.
20 Max L. Stackhouse, Dennis P. McCann, and Shirley J. Roels, eds., On Moral Business, "The Oxford Declaration on Christian Faith
and Economics", (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995), 473.
21 For more detailed analysis about the history and development of various Protestant blends of faith-based authority, see George
Marsden, Evangelicalism and Modern America (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1984) and Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1991) as well as Mark Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994) and
Noll's The Work We Have to Do: A History of Protestantism in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).
22 Michael J. Himes and Kenneth R. Himes, O.F.M., Fullness of Faith: The Public Significance of Theology (New York: Paulist Press, 1993),
56-57.
23 Donald K. McKim, ed., Calvin's Institutes, Book I, Abridged Edition (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 21.
24 Stackhouse et al, "The Oxford Declaration," 476.
25 Stackhouse et al, "The Villars Statement on Relief and Development," 471.
26 See Shirley J. Roels, "The Business Ethics of Evangelicals," in Spiritual Goods: Faith Traditions and the Practice of Business, ed. Stewart W.
Herman with Arthur Gross Schaefer, (Bowling Green, OH: Philosophy Documentation Center, 2001), 237-55.
27 Cornelius Plantinga, "Sacraments," chap. 24, in A Place to Stand (Grand Rapids, MI: Board of Publications of the Christian
Reformed Church, 1981), 115-18.
28 Max L. Stackhouse, "Familial, Social and Professional Integrity in Relationship to Business," in Marriage, Health, and the Professions, ed.
John Wall, Don Browning, William J. Doherty, and Stephen Post (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002), 240-43.
1
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Roels, "The Business Ethics of Evanglicals," 244.
James A. Waters, "Integrity Management: Learning and Implementing Ethical Principles in the Workplace," in Executive Integrity, ed.
Suresh Sirvastva and Associates (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1988), 179.
31 Waters, 193-94.
32 Within the network of Protestant Christian colleges in the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities who consider their
religious identity as central to their mission, most have undergraduate business programs. However, only a handful has graduate
business programs. As of summer 2003, of the Council's 105 North American members and 64 affiliates in 23 countries, perhaps less
than ten have advanced degree programs in business. Among these are Anderson University (IN), Azusa Pacific University (CA),
Biola University (CA), Dallas Baptist University (TX), Eastern University (PA), Geneva College (PA), Point Loma Nazarene
University (CA), and Seattle Pacific University (WA). However, there are few others with identifiable advanced programs in business
education.
33 See for example, "Management Spirituality And Religion Conference Paper Abstracts," Academy of Management Proceedings, 2004, p110.
34 See http://news.com.com 2500-1001-269179.html?legacy=cnet for the question raised by the Sherman Act.
35 The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act was first adopted in 1977 and later amended in 1998 and 2004. Prior to that time, there was little
government regulation of foreign gifts and facilitation payments. Information about it can be found at
www.usdoj.gov/criminal/fraud/fcpa/fcpastate.htm.
36 Shirley J. Roels, Business Through the Eyes of Faith (San Francisco: Harper-Collins, 1990), 256. A listing of such groups is provided.
37 See the website found at http://www.avodahinstitute.com. This institute now operates in conjunction with Yale University's
Divinity School in cooperation with their Sloan School of Management.
38 Laura Nash, Believers in Business (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, Inc.), 187 and 237.
39 Roels, Business, 256.
40 See the website found at http://www.pcd.org.
41 See the website found at http://www.oldstpats.org/church/group_content.cfm?groupObjectID=9689CAFB-6290-43598B0F13CAC5DD9344
42 See the website found at http://www.crossroads-center.org/membership/beej.html
43 See the website found at http://www.georgetown.edu/centers/woodstock/wbc/wbc-in.htm#wbcmission
44 See the website found at http://catholicwomenatwork.org
45 Susan D. Toscani. "Women in the Workplace." March 13, 2002, found at
http://www.catholic.net/the_living_church/template_article.phtml?article_id=401&channel_id=5
46 See the website found at http:/www.workinginfaith.org/about.htm
47 Bernard Häring, "Conscience: The Sacrament of Creative Fidelity and Liberty," in An Introduction to Christian Ethics: A Reader, ed.
Ronald Hamel and Kenneth Himes (New York: Paulist Press, 1989), 252-80. See particularly section five, "Discernment: The Virtue
of Critique," 269-71.
48 "Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults," no. 41, in The Rites of the Catholic Church, trans. International Commission on English in the
Liturgy (New York: Pueblo Publishing, 1976), 32.
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